A low-carbohydrate diet based on animal sources was associated with higher all-cause mortality in both men and women, whereas a vegetable-based low-carbohydrate diet was associated with lower all-cause and cardiovascular disease mortality rates.

Dean Ornish felt vindicated, saying he had recommended for years that if you're going low-carb, you need to do it with veggies, not meat. CBS emphasized the higher risk from cancer (although heart-related deaths were also higher in the meat-eating group). Meat is the issue, wrote HealthDay.

Maybe. I wish my friend well. He's a great guy. Would he have been better off fat? I don't know -- the Fung study doesn't tell us.

Dr. Fung, who holds a Doctor of Science degree, specializes in analyzing firehoses of data for health patterns. A study she had published in February of last year showed a link between regular consumption of sweetened sodas and heart disease.

Until now her work has mainly involved looking at data stores like the Nurses Health Study. These are good studies, but the numbers are limited, especially when you look at narrow risk factors, and the cohort you're studying may be fairly uniform -- the nurses' study studied nurses.

As the use of Electronic Medical Records (EMRs) expands, and EMRs carry more detail, researchers like Dr. Fung will have a much broader field of data on which to work. Studies like this will have bigger numbers, from broader populations, and they will become more reliable.

We will soon know, pretty conclusively, what factors extend life and what factors reduce it. There remains an enormous amount of noise, and some strange conclusions, in this field, like the recent study showing drinkers live longer than teetotalers. That particular study covered 1,800 people. What happens when you look at 180,000, or 18 million?

What happens is trends become clearer, conclusions become firmer. And people like Dr. Teresa Fung become more important.